Macbeth
Macbeth
Written by
Anne Dierker and Gary Sletmoe
Edited by
David Hillis
Introduction to Unit
What student wouldn’t want to read an action-packed psychological thriller replete with greed, guilt, and gore? One cannot deny the fact that Shakespeare’s Macbeth is relevant to today’s society with the variety of timeless themes in the text. Because Romeo and Juliet is typically taught in ninth grade classrooms in PPS, many students (ideally) should come into this unit with some skills to decipher Shakespeare, which will enable them to look past just deciphering the text, into a more thorough instructor-led examination of the text.
As with other plays, Macbeth must be performed and viewed as a performance. Every day, students should be speaking the words from the text. It could be through warm-up activities, class performances, reading scenes, or exit slips. There are numerous sources and curriculum guides to help with the day-to-day teaching of the unit. The aim of this guide is to give instructors another avenue with which to access relevant ideas in the text in a different way. This multi-media unit offers multiple opportunities for students to show that they comprehend the text and can make connections to their own lives (both personal and global).
Some of the key issues that will be examined in this unit are the ideas of fate vs. free will, the corruption of power, and rational and irrational decision-making. Also, students will be given multiple opportunities to show that they understand textual elements like plot, characterization, tone, etc. and apply those themes in their culminating project: a modern Macbeth movie trailer.
This unit guide is not necessarily designed to assist you in the teaching of the play Macbeth; there are many such materials available online and through the Folger Shakespeare Library, particularly their Shakespeare Set Free series. Instead, the activities in this
Written by
Anne Dierker and Gary Sletmoe
Edited by
David Hillis
Introduction to Unit
What student wouldn’t want to read an action-packed psychological thriller replete with greed, guilt, and gore? One cannot deny the fact that Shakespeare’s Macbeth is relevant to today’s society with the variety of timeless themes in the text. Because Romeo and Juliet is typically taught in ninth grade classrooms in PPS, many students (ideally) should come into this unit with some skills to decipher Shakespeare, which will enable them to look past just deciphering the text, into a more thorough instructor-led examination of the text.
As with other plays, Macbeth must be performed and viewed as a performance. Every day, students should be speaking the words from the text. It could be through warm-up activities, class performances, reading scenes, or exit slips. There are numerous sources and curriculum guides to help with the day-to-day teaching of the unit. The aim of this guide is to give instructors another avenue with which to access relevant ideas in the text in a different way. This multi-media unit offers multiple opportunities for students to show that they comprehend the text and can make connections to their own lives (both personal and global).
Some of the key issues that will be examined in this unit are the ideas of fate vs. free will, the corruption of power, and rational and irrational decision-making. Also, students will be given multiple opportunities to show that they understand textual elements like plot, characterization, tone, etc. and apply those themes in their culminating project: a modern Macbeth movie trailer.
This unit guide is not necessarily designed to assist you in the teaching of the play Macbeth; there are many such materials available online and through the Folger Shakespeare Library, particularly their Shakespeare Set Free series. Instead, the activities in this